Anyway, here’s a 2021 study on unemployment rates: Philosophy doing quite well, on its own and comparatively.
The page is behind a paywall for me, so I can’t what is says. The most common source I’ve seen for unemployment rates of recent grads by major is the ACS survey . The most recent update from February 2023 is summarized at FEDERAL RESERVE BANK of NEW YORK
In the most recent report, philosophy majors had the 2nd highest unemployment rate, after fine arts. The underemployment rate is defined as the share of graduates working in jobs that typically do not require a college degree. Looking at unemployment + underemployment, philosophy, 66% of philosophy majors were either unemployed or working in jobs that don’t require college degrees, in spite of the majority having graduate degrees. Nursing had the lowest unemployment + underemployment. Specific numbers are below:
Unemployment and Underemployment Rates by Major: Age 22-27, ACS Survey
Exactly. My D was a Classics major, but wanting med school. She knew the odds of getting into med school, and was fine with teaching HS Latin as a back up. Med school worked out.
I agree with you. I suspect that that it is the stem majors that have some 30-40% of their course load in humanities. I think it is the humanities majors that have a de minimis footprint in stem courses. Just something to think about in terms of being one-dimensional.
As someone about to graduate from prep school, I’m not necessarily sure that’s true. We have some “canon” pieces in our curriculum (i.e. Shakespeare), for sure, but I doubt there’s a mutually exclusive dichotomy there—plenty of contemporary stuff, too.
I believe this, but not with the same conviction I once had. I don’t believe in choice over Canon, but I would like to see an update of the standard required reading in high school. I think one way to encourage more humanities majors is to quit killing their love of reading in high school English.
As @confusedaboutFA can confirm, the boarding schools also supply students with summer reading lists that cover a broad range of literature to peak many interests. STEM kid especially liked Napolean’s Buttons which “explores the scientific phenomenon of molecules by highlighting how we can trace the origins of our entire existence to something as tiny as atoms and make sense of various events in history that shaped our world.”
Those lists provided my summer reading agenda and enriched both my literary vault and general knowledge (as well as son’s).
DS was well-prepared for both quantitative and non-quantitative courses at the academy and did equally well in both. I have to laugh, though, at my misplaced delight at seeing that he was taking a course called “Military Art” thinking he was looking at paintings like “Washington Crossing the Delaware” and “The Spirit of ‘76.” Not exactly.
STEM Course distribution requirements for all rarely exceed 2 in math and 2 in science; many are fewer than that. I think the question is do many humanities majors exceed the minimum?
Many colleges have a math or quantitative reasoning requirement that can be satisfied by courses like introductory statistics (or an AP statistics score), and a science requirement that can be satisfied by courses like physics for poets.
Of course, it can be argued about whether that is “enough” math and science to ensure that humanities and social science majors get a broad enough general education.
Out of the many STEM people I know, many of their humanities classes were the intro level versions - the converse of “physics for poets” - it goes both ways.
It can. But most STEM students seem to find it easier to enroll in upper level electives in literature, history or politics than the opposite. HUM students often are not interested or qualified for upper level electives in STEM courses, which often have prerequisites.
Really? I was looking through the AP Lit suggested reading list (i.e. something that would be fairly common in public schools), and I spotted, among others:
Death of a Salesman
Great Expectations
Jane Eyre
The Secret Garden
Sense and Sensibility
To Kill a Mockingbird
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
Wuthering Heights
I’m not too well-versed with “the canon,” but those all seem pretty “canonical” to me. There is much more contemporary material there, but I don’t see that as a problem—exclusively reading old literature that depicts eras you can’t relate to can get quite draining.
Also, the “Canon” can evolve over time. I don’t think Dickens was part of it in 1800, for instance.
Yes, the AP list is inclusive. But none of them are required, and a student can bypass all of them (and everything else on the list) if he so chooses. So like all lists of suggestions, it is just that.
Maybe on the AP exam, but if a class assigns such a book, they have to read it. I interpreted this as a list of books that might be taught in an AP Literature class—clearly, the College Board finds them important to include in some form.
I think we agree that the question is are many classes actually assigning the book and are many actually reading it.
I read all the books you listed in high school. I doubt most students in high school now have.
…etc. I’d argue this reading list is more “Canonical” than any of my yearlong English curriculums.
Great Expectations (seems popular!)
Pride and Prejudice
Frankenstein
Dracula
Beowulf
Hamlet
The Handmaid’s Tale
This one does mix in some more contemporary literature, but it’s a fair balance.
Personally, I’ve only read one of the books on that list. I have read Gatsby, The Odyssey, three Shakespeares, Oedipus, Frankenstein, Nabokov, and Orwell, though; there’s plenty of “classical literature” out there.
Also, from your username, I assume you’re a parent of a current high schooler/college student, so I’m going to guess you went to high school around 30 years ago? In those 30 years, a lot of new literature has been released. Personally, I don’t see any problems in excluding certain elements of “the canon” if they’re replaced with more relevant content.
As an over 60 year old with a computer science degree from the dark ages (1981), I have used my degree in some of my jobs and not in others. The days of only doing one thing in your lifelong career are over with. Most of the people I know have reinvented themselves many times over the course of their careers. People move in an out of academia, tech, business, and many other types of jobs. Work is about skills not degrees, you develop the skills you need for a job and those skills then transfer to other jobs.